No More Learning

The eight officers
continued to advance and occupied a city which cannot now be
identified', and Mahmūd, whose way was cleared before him, crossed
the Jumna and the Ganges, and found Nanda awaiting him on the
banks of the Sai with an army of 36,000 horse, 105,000 foot, and
6 40 elephants. Before this host Mahmül's heart failed him for a
moment, and he repented of having left Ghaznī, but prayer restored
his courage and he prepared for battle on the following day. In
the night, however, Nanda was unaccountably stricken with panic
and fled with a few attendants, leaving his army, his camp and his
baggage at the mercy of the invader. The confusion which prevailed
among the Hindus on the discovery of Nanda's Aight was at first
suspected by Mahmud to be a stratagem to induce him to attack,
but having ascertained that it was genuine he permitted his army
to plunder the camp, and a vast quantity of booty was collected
without a blow. Of Nanda's elephants 580 were taken and Mahmūd,
1 Professor Dowson has suggested that it was Bārī, in the present state of
Dholpur, but the identification is unconvincing.


## p. 22 (#60) ##############################################

22
[CH.
THE GHAZNAVIDS
who was apprehensive of disturbances in the Punjab, returned, con-
tent with this victory, to Ghaznī.
Later in the same year he led an expedition into two districts
disguised in Persian histories under the names of Qirāt and Nür and
said to have been situated between the boundaries of India and
Turkistan. The most probable conjecture identifies them with the
districts of Dir, Swāt, and Bajaur. The enterprise was successful
and the command of the last named district having been bestowed
upon 'Ali bin Qadr, a Saljuq Turk, Mahmud again invaded Kashmir
and besieged Loharkot, but abandoned the siege after a month and
retired from Kashmir. He did not return at once to Ghazni, but
marched into the Punjab to chastise Bhimpāl for having joined the
confederacy of the rajas of Hindūstān. The army, instead of
besieging Lahore, dispersed throughout the neighbouring country
in order to subsist upon it and to prevent supplies from reaching
the capital, and Bhimpāl was reduced to such straits that he fled
and sought an asylum with the Chauhan raja of Ajmer. His flight
marks the formal annexation of the Punjab by Mahmūd, who may
henceforth be regarded as an Indian ruler. Less than a century
and a half after his death the Indian province of his great empire
became the kingdom and the sole refuge of his descendants.
In the autumn of 1022 Mahmūd again invaded Hindūstān in
order to inflict further punishment on Nanda of Kālinjar. He
marched through the Doāb, crossed the Jumna below Delhi, and
was attracted by the strong fortress of Gwalior, to which he laid
siege but, finding that the operation was likely to be protracted,
permitted the Kachhwāha raja to compound for a formal submission
by a gift of no more than thirty-five elephants, and pursued his way
towards his real objective, Kālinjar, to the reduction of which he
was prepared to devote more time. After a protracted siege Nanda
was permitted to redeem his stronghold for three hundred elephants
which, instead of being formally delivered, were mischievously driven
in a body towards the Muslim camp, in the hope that they would
throw it into confusion ; but the Turks had by now some experience
of elephants, and caught and managed them. According to a possibly
mythical account of the event, their success compelled the unwilling
admiration of Nanda, who addressed to Mahmud an encomiastic
poem which was so highly praised by learned Hindus in the Muslim
camp that its author was rewarded with the government of fifteen
ortresses, a grant probably as hollow as the flattery which had
earned it. After this composition with Nanda, Mahmūd returned to
Ghazni with his spoils,
1
1


## p. 23 (#61) ##############################################

11 ]
SOMNĀTH
23
In 1023 he was occupied in Transoxiana and in the following year
set out on his most famous expedition into India. There is a con-
flict of authority on the subject of the date of his departure from
Ghaznī, but he appears to have left his capital on October 17, 1024,
at the head of his own army and a body of 30,000 composed, as on
a former occasion, of volunteers from Turkistān and other countries,
attracted by the hope of booty.
It is said that the impudent vaunts of the Brāhmans attached
to the wealthy religious establishment of Somnāth, on the coast of
Kāthīāwār suggested to Mahmūd the desirability of striking a blow
at this centre of Hinduism. The wealth and importance of the
shrine far exceeded those of any temple which he had yet attacked.
One thousand Brāhmans daily attended the temple, three hundred
barbers were maintained to serve the pilgrims visiting it, and three
hundred and fifty of the unfortunate women whom the Hindus
dedicate nominally to the service of their gods and actually to the
appetites of their priests danced continually before the idol, which
was a huge lingam or phallus. These priests and attendants were
supported from the endowments of the temple, which are said to
have consisted of the revenues of. 10,000 villages, the idol was washed
daily with water brought from the Ganges, 750 miles distant, and
the jewels of the temple were famed throughout the length and
breadth of India.
The Brāhmans attached to this famous shrine boasted that
their master Shiva, the moon-lord, was the most powerful of all the
gods and that it was only owing to his displeasure with other gods
that the invader had been permitted to plunder and pollute their
shrines. This provocative vaunt suggested to Mahmūd the des-
truction of the temple of Somnāth as the readiest means to a
wholesale conversion of the idolators.
He reached Multān on November 20 and decided to march
across the great desert of India to Ajmer. In his arduous under-
taking he made elaborate preparations. Each trooper was ordered
to carry with him fodder, water and food for several days, and
Mahmud supplemented individual efforts by loading his own estab-
lishment of 30,000 camels with water and supplies for the desert
march. These precautions enabled his army to cross the desert
without mishap, and on its reaching Ajmer, or rather the Chauhān
capital of Sāmbhar, for the modern city of Ajmer was not then
built, the raja fled and the invaders plundered the city and slew
many Hindus, but did not attempt the reduction of the fortress.
From Sāmbhar the army marched towards Anhiļvāra, now known


## p. 24 (#62) ##############################################

24
THE GHAZNAVIDS
[CH.
as Pātan, in Gujarāt, capturing on its way an unnamed fortress
which furnished it with water and supplies. Mahmud, on arriving
at Anhilvāra early in January, 1025, discovered that the raja,
Bhimdeo, and most of the inhabitants had fled, and the army,
having plundered the supplies left in the city, continued its march
to Somnāth. On his way thither Mahmud captured several small
forts and in the desert of Kāthīāwār encountered a force of 20,000,
apparently part of Bhimdeo's army, which he defeated and dis-
persed. Two days' march from Somnāth stood the town of Dewalwāra,
the inhabitants of which, secure in the protection of the god, had
refused to seek safety in flight and paid for this misplaced confidence
with their lives.
On reaching Somnāth the Muslims perceived the Hindus in
large numbers on the walls, and were greeted with jeers and threats.
On the following day they advanced to the assault and, having driven
the Hindus from the walls with well directed showers of arrows,
placed their scaling ladders and effected a lodgement on the
rampart. Many Hindus fell in the street-fighting which followed but
by dusk the Muslims had not established themselves sufficiently to
justify their remaining in the town during the night, and withdrew
to renew the attack on the following morning. They then drove the
defenders, with terrible slaughter, through the streets towards the
temple. From time to time bands of Hindus entered the temple
and after passionate prayers for the moon-lord's aid sallied forth to
fight and to die. At length a few survivors fled towards the sea and
attempted to escape in boats, but Mahmūd had foreseen this and
his soldiers, provided with boats, pursued and destroyed them.
When the work of blood was finished Mahmud entered the
temple, the gloom of which was relieved by the light from costly
lamps which flickered on the fifty-six polished pillars supporting
the roof, on the gems which adorned the idol, and on a huge golden
chain, the bells attached to which summoned to their duties the
relays of attendant priests. As the eyes of the conqueror fell upon
the hewn stone, three yards in height above the pavement, which
had received the adoration of generations of Hindus, he raised his
mace in pious zeal and dealt it a heavy blow. Some historians
relate that when he commanded that the idol should be shattered
the Brāhmans offered to redeem it with an enormous sum of money,
and that their prayers were seconded by the arguments of his
courtiers who urged that the destruction of one idol would not
extinguish idolatry and that the money might be employed for


## p. 25 (#63) ##############################################

II ]
SACK OF SOMNĀTH
25
>
pious purposes. To both Mahmūd replied that he would be a
breaker, not a seller of idols, and the work of destruction went
forward. When the idol was broken asunder gems worth more
than a hundred times the ransom offered by the Brāhmans were
found concealed in a cavity within it and Mahmūd's iconoclastic
zeal was materially rewarded ; but this story appears to be an
embellishment, by later historians, of the earlier chronicles. Of the
fragments of the idol two were sent to Ghazni to form steps at the
entrance of the great mosque and the royal palace, and two are
said to have been sent to Mecca and Medina, where they were
placed in public streets to be trodden underfoot.
Mahmūd was now informed that Bhimdeo of Anhilvāra had
taken reſuge in the island of Beyt Shankhodhar, at the north-
western extremity of the peninsular of Kāthīāwār, and pursued him
thither. If the chroniclers are to be credited it was possible in those
days to reach the island on horseback at low tide for native guides
are said to have pointed out the passage to Mahmud and to have
warned him that he and his troops would perish if the tide, or the
wind rose while they were attempting it. Mahmūd nevertheless
led his army across and Bhimdeo was so dismayed by his determi-
nation and intrepidity that he fled from the fortress in a mean
disguise and left it at the mercy of the invaders, who slew all the
males in the town and enslaved the women, among whom, accord-
ing to one authority, were some of the ladies of Bhimdeo's family.
From Beyt Shankhodhar Mahmud returned to Anhilvāra, where
he halted for some time to refresh his troops. It is difficult to believe
that the climate and situation of the city and the reputed existence
of gold mines in its neighbourhood induced Mahmūd seriously to
propose that the court should be transferred thither. The historian
responsible for this statement adds that Mahmud's proposal was
successfully combated by his counsellors, who impressed upon him
the impossibility of controlling from Anhilvāra the turbulent pro-
vince of Khurāsān, the acquisition and retention of which had been
so difficult and so costly; and Mahmúd prepared to return to Ghazni.
The line of retreat chosen was through the desert of Sind to Multān,
for Mahmūd was loth to risk his booty in a battle with the raja of
1 The stronghold is variously styled in Persian texts Kandana, Khandana, and
Khandaba, in which some resemblance to the last two syllables of the name of the
island can be traced, but the Persian script, being easily corruptible by ignorant or
careless scribes, is ill-suited for the preservation of the correct forms of proper names,
and it is the description of Bhimdeo's rețreat that enables us to identify it with Beyt
Shankhodhar,


## p. 26 (#64) ##############################################

26
(CH.
THE GHAZNAVIDS
Sāmbhar, who had closed with a great army the line by which he
had advanced.
The army suffered much in its retreat, first through the arid
desert of Sind and next through the Sind-Sāgar Doāb, where it was
so harassed and delayed by the Jāts of that region that it was not
until the spring of 1026 that it reached Ghazni.
Mahmūd's vanity was flattered after his return by the receipt
of complimentary letters from the Caliph al-Qadir Billāh conferring
fresh titles on him, distinguishing his sons in the same manner, and
formally recognizing him as ruler of Khurāsān, Hindūstān, Sīstān,
and Khvārazm, the whole of which great empire, with the exception
of India, where he held only one province, actually acknowledged
his sway:
In the autumn of this year Mahmūd made his last incursion into
India, a punitive expedition against the Jāts who had harassed his
retreat. He marched to Multān and there prepared a fleet of 1400
boats, each armed with an iron spike projecting from the prow
and similar spikes projecting from the gunwale on either side and
carrying a crew of twenty men armed with bows and arrows and
hand grenades of naphtha. The Jāts launched four, or, according
to some authorities, eight thousand boats and attacked the Muslims,
but their boats were pierced or capsized by the spikes and the
victory was so complete that the Jāts, almost to a man, were drown-
ed or slain. The Muslims then disembarked on the islands where
the Jāts had placed their wives and families for safety and carried
off the women and children as slaves.
The remainder of Mahmūd's reign was occupied by the suppres-
sion of the Saljūq Turks, whom he had incautiously encouraged too
far and by the annexation of western Persia. He died at Ghazni
on April 21, 1030.
It is only in a limited sense that Mahmūd can be described as
an Indian sovereign, for it was not until the later years of his reign
that he annexed and occupied the Punjab, the only Indian province
which he held, but he was the first to carry the banner of Islam
into the heart of India and to tread the path in which so many follow-
ed him. He founded an Indian dynasty, for the later kings of his
house, stripped of all their possessions in Persia, Transoxiana, and
Afghānistān, were fain to content themselves with the kingdom of
the Punjab, which had been but an insignificant province of his great
empire.
To Muslim historians Mahmúd is one of the greatest of the
champions of Islam. How far his Indian raiềs and massacres were


## p. 27 (#65) ##############################################

nI ]
MASODI
27
inspired by a desire of propagating his faith, for which purpose they
were ill adapted, and how far by avarice, must remain uncertain,
for Mahmūd's character was complex. Though zealous for Islam
he maintained a large body of Hindu troops, and there is no reason
to believe that conversion was a condition of their service. The
avarice most conspicuously displayed in his review of his riches
before his death and in his undignified lamentations over the pros-
pect of leaving them gave way to lavishness where his religion
or his reputation was concerned. His patronage of architecture
adorned Ghazni with many a noble building and his no less munifi-
cent patronage of letters made his court the home of Firdausi,
'Asāirī, Asadi of Tūs, Minūchihri of Balkh, 'Unsuri, 'Asjadi of Marv,
Farrukhi, Daqiqi; and many other poets of less note.
of less note. His treatment
of the first-named poet, whom he paid for his great epic in silver
instead of the promised gold, is remembered to his discredit, though
it was probably due less to his niggardliness than to a courtier's
jealousy.
Some European historians, ignorant of the principles of oriental
abuse and of the Islamic law of legitimacy have asserted, on the
authority of the satire which Firdausī, after his disappointment,
fulminated against his patron, that Mahmūd was a bastard, but
Firdausi's charge against him is only that his mother was not of
noble birth. He seems to have been the son of a concubine or hand.
maiden, but by the law of Islam the son of a concubine or handmaiden
is as legitimate as the son of a regularly married wiſe.
The story of the contest between Mahmūd's two sons is a mere
repetition of that of the contest between Mahmud and his brother
Ismāʻīl. Mas'ūd, the abler of the two, was at Hamadān when his
father died, and at once set out for Ghaznī, where a party of the
nobles had, in obedience to Mahmūd's will, acknowledged
Muhammad as their sovereign. Masʼūd was joined during his
advance by several of the leading nobles, including Ayāz, Mahmūd's
favourite slave and confidential adviser, and on October 4 those
who had hitherto supported Muhammad perceived that his cause
was lost, imprisoned him, and joined his brother, who had reached
Herat, but their tardy submission availed them little, and they were
either executed or imprisoned for life. The unfortunate Muhammad
was blinded, and was carried by Masóūd to Balkh, which for a time
became the royal residence.
Mas'ud never attempted to emulate his father's activity, but
history now sheds more light on the administration of the Indian
province of the empire. The government of the Punjab had been


## p. 28 (#66) ##############################################

28
[CH.
THE GHAZNAVIDS
SO
entrusted by Mahmúd to a Turkish officer named Ariyāruq, whom
Mas'ud summoned to Balkh. He was charged with oppression and
extortion, with preventing his victims from having access to their
sovereign, and with retaining with treasonable intent a large part
of the revenue. His power was great that it was considered
unlikely that he would obey the summons of Mas“ūd, but he pre-
sented himself at Balkh with a large contingent of Indian troops
and by ingratiating himself with the leading courtiers contrived to
evade for some time an inquiry into his administration, but his
enemies watched their opportunity and one day, when they knew
that he was drunk, persuaded Masóūd to summon him to court. He
was constrained to obey and Mas'ud incensed both by his dilatori.
ness in appearing and by the unseemliness of his conduct, caused
him to be arrested as a preliminary to an investigation. His Indian
troops were disposed to attempt a rescue but were dissuaded by
the threat that the first act of violence would be the signal for his
execution and by the promise that they should not suffer by the
change of masters, the royal officers were thus enabled to enter
Ariyāruq's quarters, and seize his movable property, his treasure,
and, more important than all, his accounts, which ſurnished ample
evidence of his misconduct. He was sent to Ghūr, where he was
put to death, and his friend Asaftigin Ghāzi shortly afterwards
shared his fate.
Masʼūd entered Ghazni on May 23, 1031, and incurred much
odium hy requiring, against the advice of his counsellors, a refund
of all the largesse which had been distributed by his brother on his
proclamation as Amir.
The affairs of the empire were now suffering from the loss of
Mahmūd's strong guiding hand. Western Persia was disturbed and
a new governor was sent thither, but the Punjab was in even greater
confusion, for no governor had been appointed since the recall of
Ariyāruq, and the officers sent to seize his property and conduct a
local inquiry into his administration were unable to cope with the
opposition of his relations and their dependants and partisans.
.
There was nobody at court fit for the important post of governor
of the Indian province, and Masóūd with some misgivings, appointed
to it his father's treasurer, Ahmad Niyāltigin, whose honesty was
dubious and whose inexperience of civil and military affairs was
notorious. It was believed that the retention of his son at Ghazni
as a hostage would ensure his fidelity and the instructions issued
for the guidance of officials in India indicate the nature of the
įrregularities of Ariyāruq's administration. They were not to under.


## p. 29 (#67) ##############################################

11 ]
TROUBLES AT LAHORË
29
take, without special permission, expeditions beyond the limits of the
Punjab, but were to accompany Ahmad on any expedition which he
might undertake ; they were not to drink, play polo, or mix in social
intercourse with the Hindu officers at Lahore ; and they were to
refrain from wounding the susceptibilities of those officers and their
troops by inopportune displays of religious bigotry.
Mas'ud would have visited the Punjab in person had his presence
not been more urgently required in the north, where the Saljuqs
threatened Balkh, and in the west, where the governor of 'Irāq
needed support and where the daily expected death of the Caliph,
al-Qadir Billāh, might breed fresh disorders. The news of his death
actually reached Balkh on November 9. Ahmad Niyāltigin, on
arriving in India, at once quarrelled with Abu-'l-Hasan, 'the Shīrāzi
Qāzi,' one of the officials who had been sent to collect the revenue
and inquire into Ariyāruq's administration. Abu-'l-Hasan was in-
clined to resent what he regarded as his supersession by Ahmad and
the latter's success in collecting revenue which he himself had been
unable to collect, but his opposition was based chiefly on the new.
comer's treasonable designs. Ahmad's appointment had turned his
head, and he encouraged the circulation of a rumour that his mother
had been guilty of an intrigue with Mahmud, of which he was the
offspring, and planned an expedition to distant Benares, the wealth
of which might enable him to establish himself as an independent
sovereign in India. Abu-'l-Hasan advised him to devote his atten-
tion to the civil administration and to delegate the actual command
of the troops to a military officer, but was curtly told to mind his
own business. Each party then reported the other to Mas'ūd, Ahmad
complained that Abu-'l-Hasan was attempting to undermine his
authority and Abu-'l-Hasan warned his master of Ahmad's designs.
In this contest Abu-'l-Hasan was worsted. He was ordered to
confine his attention to the collection of the revenue, which was his
affair, and to leave the general civil and military administration to
the governor.
Mas'ud suffered for his neglect of the warning. Ahmad led his
troops to Benares? , indulged them with twelve hours' plunder of
1 The date of this expedition coincides nearly with the date (June 19, 1033),
assigned for the death of the mythical hero Sālār Masíūd, popularly known as
Ghazi Miyān, at Balrāich. Sālār Masóūd is said to have been the son of Sālār Sāhū
and Māmal, sister of Mahmūd. The only work, pretending to be a history, which
treats of him, is the Mir‘āt. i-Masóūdi, written in the reign of Jahāngir by 'Abd-ur-
Rahmãn Chishti, who cites as his authority 'an old book written by Mullā
Muhammad of Ghazni, a servant of Sultan Mahmūd,' but no trace of ihis old
book’ is to be found and there is little reason for believing that it ever existed, save
in the imagination of ‘Abd-ur-Rahmān Chishti, who seems to have been a crazy
and credulous retailer of popular legends. The marvellous exploits of the young


## p. 30 (#68) ##############################################

30
( CH.
THE GHAZNAVIDS
the city and in 1034 returned to Lahore with enormous wealth. He
reported his success in glowing terms to Masóūd, but his report was
not accompanied by the expected remittance of spoil. Abu-'l-Hasan
reported at the same time that Ahmad was employing the plunder
of Benares in the raising of a large army recruited from the most
turbulent and disaffected ruffians of Lahore and the Punjab, that he
openly boasted of being the son of Mahmūd, and that he was on the
point of repudiating his allegiance. This report was corroborated by
Ahmad's conduct and it was decided to treat him as a rebel. There
was an awkward pause when Mas'ud asked who would undertake
the task of crushing the rebellion. The Muslim nobles, who under-
stood the difficulty of the enterprise and disliked the Indian climate,
were mute, and their silence was the opportunity of the Hindu Tilak,
who offered his services as a native who knew the country and for
whom the climate had no terrors.
Tilak was of humble origin, being the son of a barber, but was
handsome, enterprising and accomplished, speaking and writing well
both Hindi and Persian. From the service of Abu-'l-Hasan he had
been promoted to that of Mahmūd's minister and eventually to that
of Mahmúd himself. He had deserved well of Mas“ūd, for he had,
at considerable personal risk, consistently supported his cause against
that of his brother, and had been rewarded, after his accession, with
the chief command of the Hindu troops and the rank of a noble of
the empire.
When Tilak reached India he found that the officers and troops
who remained loyal to Masóūd had taken refuge in a fortress near
Lahore, where they were besieged by Ahmad. He occupied Lahore,
seized several Muslims known to be partisans of Ahmad, and caused
their right hands to be struck off. This ruthless measure so terrified
the rebellious troops that many of them deserted Ahmad and joined
Tilak. Judicious bribery still further thinned the ranks of the rebel
army, and when Ahmad was forced to stand and face his pursuers
he was defeated, and was deserted by all save a body of three
hundred horse. Instead of pursuing him Tilak offered the lately
rebellious Jāts the royal pardon and a sum of 500,000 dirhams as
the price of Ahmad's head. The Jāts surrounded the fugitive, slew
hero need not be related here, but he and his four mythical companions have
become objects of worship to a peculiar sect, the Pachpirijas, or followers of the five
saints, which embraces ignorant Hindus as well as ignorant Muslims and is of great
interest to students of folklore. There is probably some slender historical foundation
for the myth, but it can no longer be traced. See E. and D. II, 513-549 and The
Heroes Five, by the late Mr. R. Greeven, I. C. S. (Allahabad, 1898).


## p. 31 (#69) ##############################################

ti )
HINDU MERCENARIES
31
him, and demanded their reward. Tilak retorted that they had
,
already received it from the plunder of Ahmad's camp, but
after some chaffering Ahmad's head and his son, who had been
taken alive, were surrendered in consideration of the royal pardon
and 100,000 dirhams. Tilak presented his prizes to Masóūd at Marv
and was rewarded by further tokens of his master's favour.
On August 29, 1036, Masóūd sent his second son, Majdūd, to
India, as governor of the Punjab, and vowed, when he himself fell
sick in the following year, that if he recovered he would lead an
expedition into India and capture the fortress of Hānsī. On his
recovery his advisers warned him in vain of the folly of engaging in
a purposeless enterprise in India while the Saljūqs were threatening
his northern and eastern provinces : Masóūd insisted on the fulfil-
ment of his vow and on October 5, 1037, he left Ghazni for India.
On November 8 he reached the Jhelum and was detained there for
a fortnight by an illness serious enough to startle his conscience
into abjuration of the sin of wine-bibbing, and his wine was poured
into the river and the use of intoxicants forbidden in his army.
By November 29 he was able to take the field and on December 20
arrived before Hānsi and opened the siege of the fortress. In spite
of an obstinate resistance the town was stormed on January 1, 1038,
after the walls had been breached in five places, and was sacked ;
the Brāhmans and the fighting men were put to the sword and the
women and children were enslaved.
Mas'ūd returned to Ghaznī on February 11 to learn that the
Saljūqs were besieging the ancient town of Rai, near the modern
Tehran, and had also invaded Khurāsān. He encouraged his officers
with promises of speedy relief but lingered at Ghazni until the
following winter and by the time he had taken the field Chaghar
Beg Dāūd the Saljūq was in possession of Nishāpūr. The campaign
against the Saljūqs was ended by a crushing defeat sustained by
Mas'ud in 1040 at Tāliqān, three marches from Marv, Khvārazm
was lost, and Mas'ûd was compelled to retreat to Ghazni while the
Saljūqs besieged Balkh. It was during this campaign that the
character of the Hindu troops was first impugned. The Muslim
officers complained that five hundred of them could not be induced
to face ten Turkmāns, and the Hindu officers retorted that while
the Muslim troops had fared well their men were starved, and had
received no four for four months. When it was suggested that an
Indian corps should be raised for the expulsion of the Saljūqs,
Masóūd exclaimed, with petulant ingratitude, Never! These are
the men who lost us Mary. '


## p. 32 (#70) ##############################################

32
[ch.
THE GHAZNAVIDS
On November 13 Masʼūd, overcome by craven fear, set out from
Ghazni for Lahore, taking with him the women of his harem, what
remained of his father's treasure, and the brother whom he had
blinded years before. He was now an object of contempt to his
own troops, and when he reached the Marīgala pass, a few miles
east of Hasan Abdāl, his guards fell upon his treasure-laden camels,
divided the spoils, and gaining possession of the person of the blind
Muhammad, acclaimed him as their Amir. Mas'ūd was arrested
and brought before the brother whom he had so cruelly mutilated,
and was overwhelmed with shame when Muhammad told him that
he bore him no malice and bade him choose his place of residence.
Masóūd chose the fortress of Girī and was sent thither, but was put
to death a few months later by order of Muhammad's son, Ahmad.
Masóūd's son Maudūd, who was at Balkh, marched to Ghaznī
on hearing of his father's deposition and Muhammad turned back to
meet him. In the winter of 1041-42 the two armies encountered
one another at Nangrahār, about half-way between Ghazni and
the Indus, and after an obstinate conflict Maudūd was victorious
and avenged his father's fate by putting to death with torture
Muhammad and all his sons except two, 'Abd-ur-Rahīm, whom he
spared in return for consideration shown for the imprisoned Mas'ūd,
and Nāmi, who was governor of the Punjab. An officer sent to
India had no difficulty in defeating and slaying Nāmī, but there still
remained Maudūd's own brother, Majdūd, who had been appointed
by his father to the government of the Indian province and had
proved himself an energetic and capable commander. He had cap-
tured the important town of Thānesar and was now at Hānsī,
awaiting a favourable opportunity for attacking Delhi, but cn learn-
ing that Maudūd had sent an army against him returned rapidly
to Lahore, and arrived there on July 27, 1042. Maudūd's troops
reached the city one or two days later and it appeared probable
that they would declare for the more capable and more popular
Majdūd, but on the morning of July 30 he was found dead in his
bed. No cause is assigned for his death, and it may have been due
to heat stroke, or some other rapidly fatal disease, but it is more
probable that agents of Maudūd had been at work.
Maudūd's authority was now established in the Punjab but it
commanded none of the respect which the Hindus had yielded to
the great Mahmud, and two years later Mahipal, raja of Delhi, re-
captured without difficulty Hānsī, Thānesar, and Kāngra, inflaming
the zeal of his troops by exhibiting to them at the temple in the
last-named fortress a replica of the famous idol carried off by
>


## p. 33 (#71) ##############################################

n]
MAUDOD AND 'ALI
33
Mahmud, now believed to have returned by a miracle to its former
shrine.
Mahīpāl was encouraged by his success at Kāngra to advance
even to the walls of Lahore, and besieged the city, but the nobles,
who had been too deeply engaged in quarrels regarding precedence,
fiefs, and titles to send relief to the three lost fortresses, showed a
united front to the enemy at the gates, and Mahīpāl was obliged to
retire.
In 1046 Maudūd's chamberlain renewed the feud with Ghūr by
invading the small principality with a large force, and capturing
two princes of the ruling house, who were carried to Ghazni and
put to death.
In 1048 Maudūd, in order to allay the strife between the nobles
of the Punjab, appointed his two eldest sons, Mahmūd and Mansūr,
to the government of Lahore and Peshāwar, and at the same time
sent Bu 'Ali Hasan, Kotwall of Ghaznī, to India to curb the aggres-
sion of the Hindus, in which task he succeeded well and captured
a fortress which cannot now be identified with any certainty, but
he fell a victim to one of the intrigues so common in oriental courts,
and was rewarded, on his return to Ghazni, by being cast into
prison, where his enemies anticipated the probability of his restora-
tion to power by murdering him.
Maudūd died of an intestinal complaint on December 22, 1049,
while preparing to visit his father-in-law, Chaghar Beg Dāūd the
Saljūq, and in accordance, it was said, with his will, his infant son
Masóūd, aged three, was proclaimed Amīr by the servants of his
household, who proposed that the boy's mother, the daughter of
Chaghar Beg Dāūd, should exercise the powers of regency, but the
nobles of Ghaznī, who had not been consulted, refused to ratify
this arrangement, and on December 29 deposed the child and pro-
claimed his uncle, “Ali Abu-'l-Hasan, who married his brother's
widow, the Saljūq princess.
‘Ali proved to be a feeble ruler, and in 1052 his uncle, 'Izz-ud-
daulah 'Abd-ur-Rashid, the sixth son of Mahmūd, was released
from the fortress in which he had been imprisoned, advanced on
Ghazni, deposed his nephew, and ascended the throne ; while the
daughter of Chaghar Beg Dāūd, bitterly resenting her husband's
deposition, left Ghazni and returned to her father.
‘Abd-ur-Rashid was a scholar with a taste for theology, but was
as little fitted as 'Ali to hold the reins of government in troubled
times. He appointed to the government of the Punjab Nūshtigin,
1 The Kotwal of a large city corresponded to the officer whom we designate
Commissioner of Police, and exercised also extensive magisterial powers.
C. H. I. III.
3


## p. 34 (#72) ##############################################

34
THE GHAŽNAVIDS
[CH
an able and active officer who recovered the fortress of Kāngra
and restored order, but in Tughril 'the Ingrate', another servant,
who had been a slave of Mahmûd, he was less fortunate. Tughril
was sent to Sīstān and reduced that province to obedience, but it
was his own authority and not his master's that he established.
His successes, which appear to have included some victories over
the Saljuqs', who now ruled Khurāsān, cnabled him to raise and
maintain a large army, with which he marched to Ghazni, defeated
and put to death 'Abd-ur-Rashid and nine other members of the
royal house, and ascended the throne. His treachery was generally
abhorred, and he was assassinated, after a reign of forty days, by
the royal guards. Nūshtigin, who had left India on hearing of
Tughril's usurpation, arrived at Ghazni a few days after his death
and took counsel with the nobles regarding the filling of the vacant
throne. There still survived, imprisoned in a fortress, Farrukhzād
and Ibrāhīm, two sons of Mas'ud I, and the nobles elected the latter,
but, on discovering that he was in feeble health, transferred their
suffrages to his brother. Almost immediately after Farrukhzād's
enthronement the kingdom was invaded by Chaghar Beg Dāūd who,
after being defeated by Nūshtigin, summoned to his assistance his
more famous son Alp Arsalān, against whom Farrukhzād took the
field in person. Alp Arsalān gained an indecisive victory and retired
with his prisoners, leaving in Farrukhzād's hands those taken from
Chaghar Beg Dāūd by Nūshtigin. An exchange formed the basis
of a treaty of peace, and on Farrukhzād's death in March, 1059,
his brother Ibrāhīm, who succeeded him, renewed the treaty and
arranged a marriage between his son Mas'ūd and the daughter of
Malik Shāh, Alp Arsalān's son. The treaty was faithfully observed
by the Saljūqs during Ibrāhīm's long reign, and the security of his
northern and western frontiers enabled him to devote his attention
to India. In 1079 he crossed the southern border of the Punjab
and captured the town of Ajūdhan, now known as Pāk Pattan.
In the course of the same campaign he is said to have taken a town
named Rūpāl, which was perhaps the place of that name in Mahi
Kāntha, as he appears to have advanced towards the western coast
and to have come upon
settlement of Pārsīs which may be
identified with Nāvsārī in Gujarāt.
This is the only supposition by
which it is possible to explain a Muslim historian's obviously in-
1 According to another account of Tughril's career in Sistān he temporarily
transferred his allegiance to the Saljūgs, and, having acquired the art of war
according to their system, utilized his knowledge for the destruction of his master,
but he does not appear to have been acting, in his rebellion, as an agent of the
Saljuqs.
a


## p. 35 (#73) ##############################################

11 ]
BAHRĀM
35
accurate statement that he reached a town populated exclusively by
Khurāsānīs who had been deported to India by Afrāsiyāb.
Ibrāhīm died on August 25, 1099, after a comparatively peaceful
reign of forty-two years, and was succeeded by his twenty-third son,
'Alā-ud-Daulah Mas'ūd III, surnamed al-Karim, who had married
the daughter of Malik Shāh. The chief events of his peaceful reign
of seventeen years were an expedition beyond the Ganges, led by
Tughātigin of Lahore, of whose exploits no details are given, and the
appointment of Husain, son of Sām, to the government of Ghūr,
which is interesting as evidence that the Shansabāni princes were
still vassals of Ghaznī. Mas'ûd III died in 1115 at the age of fifty-
seven, and was succeeded by his son Shīrzād, who was deposed in
the following year by his brother Arsalān 'Abd-ul-Malik. Arsalān's
half brother Bahrām, who was the son of the Saljūq princess, fled
for refuge to his uncle, Sultān Sanjar, in Khurāsān, and Arsalān was
foolish enough to treat his stepmother with indignity, and even to
offer her a gross insult. His folly incensed Sanjar, who was already
a
disposed to espouse the cause of his nephew Bahrām, and he advanced
on Ghazni with a large army.
Arsalān was defeated within a few
miles of the city and fled to India, and Sanjar placed Bahrām on the
throne and returned to Khurāsān. Arsalān, on learning of his
departure, returned to Ghazni and expelled Bahrām. In 1117 Sanjar,
who had succeeded, on the death of his brother Muhammad, to the
sovereignty of all the dominions of the Great Saljūqs, was too much
occupied with his own affairs to be able to send assistance to Bahrām,
but in 1118 he provided him with troops, and he marched to Ghazni
and defeated and captured his brother.
aptured his brother. He was at first disposed to
spare his life, but, on discovering that he was hatching scheines for
the recovery of the throne, put him to death.
Shortly after his accession Bahrām marched into India to re-
duce to obedience Muhammad Bāhlim, who, having been appointed
governor of the Punjab by Arsalān, refused to acknowledge his
Bāhlim was defeated and captured on January 22, 1119,
but Bahrām, with culpable leniency, not only pardoned but rein-
stated him, and returned to Ghazni. Bāhlīm displayed great energy
in subduing the minor Hindu chieftains on the borders of the Punjab
and established himself in Nāgaur, where he again repudiated his
allegiance to Bahrām. Bahrām marched from Ghazni against the
rebel, who foolishly advanced northward and met him in the neigh-
bourhood of Multān, where he was defeated, and in attempting to
escape was swallowed up, with two of his sons, in a quicksand. He
successor.
3-2


## p. 36 (#74) ##############################################

36
( CH.
THE GHAŻNAVIDS
deserves to be remembered, because he established Muhammadan
rule over provinces which had never acknowledged the authority of
the greatest of the Ghaznavids. Nāgaur is situated more than 300
miles to the south of Lahore, and it is said that Bāhlim was accom-
panied, on his march against Bahrām, by ten sons, each of whom
ruled a province or district.
The later years of Bahrām's reign were overshadowed by the
menace of the growing power of the Shansabānī princes of Ghūr,
who had husbanded their resources while the Ghaznavids and the
Saljūqs were at strife. Qutb-ud-din Muhammad of Ghūr, having
quarrelled with his brother, fled to Ghazni and married a daughter
of Bahrām, who, after harbouring him for some time, suspected him
of plotting against him and removed him by poison. Qutb-ud din's
next brother, Saif-ud-din, prince of Ghūr, invaded the Ghaznavid
dominions to avenge his brother's death, defeated Bahrām, drove
him to India, and occupied Ghazni, appointing his brother Bahā.
ud-din Sãm his lieutenant in Ghúr. In 1149 Bahrām returned
suddenly from India, surprised Saif-ud-din, and put him to flight.
He was pursued and overtaken and was induced to surrender by a
promise that his life should be spared, but the perfidious Bahrām,
having secured his enemy, first publicly exposed him to the derision
of the populace and then put him to death. Baha-ud-din Sām is
said to have died of grief for his brother, and another brother,
'Alā-ud-din Husain, succeeded to the principality and in 1151 took a
terrible revenge for Saif-ud-din's death. He invaded the Ghazna-
vid kingdom, defeated Bahrām in three successive battles, captured
Ghaznī, and burnt it to the ground. The flames raged for seven
days and the outrage earned for its author the name of Jahānsüz,'
'the World-burner. ' The remains of the kings, except Mahmūd,
Masóūd I and Ibrāhīm, were torn from their graves and burnt, and
their tombs were destroyed, the male inhabitants, except the Sayyids",
who were carried to Ghür to be put to death there, were slaughtered
and the women and children carried off into slavery, and 'Alā-ud-din,
after leaving Ghaznī, marched through other provinces of the king-
dom, destroying the monuments of the taste and munificence of its
former rulers.
Bahrām had fled to India aſter his defeat, but ventured to return
to Ghazni when the World-burner, shortly after his victories, in-
curred the wrath of Sultan Sanjar the Saljūq and was defeated
and temporarily imprisoned by him. Bahrām, who died shortly
1 Sayyids are descendants of Muhammad through his daughter Fátima, who
was married to his cousin ‘Ali. They had two sons, Hasan and Husain, from one
or other of whom all Sayyids claim descent.


## p. 37 (#75) ##############################################

11 ]
THE END OF THE DYNASTY
37
afterwards', is favourably known as a patron of literature. The
famous poet Sanāſ resided at his court and another writer made
for him a Persian translation of the Arabic version of the story
Kalilah wa Dimnzh, the better known translation of which, the
Anvār-i-Suhaili, by Mullā Hasan Wā'iz, al-Kāshifi, was made in
the reign of Sultān Hasan the Timurid.
Bahrām was succeeded by his son Khusrav Shāh, a feeble ruler
in whose reign a horde of the Ghuzz tribe of Turkmāns invaded
Khurāsān and defeated and captured Sultān Sanjar, who died in
their hands in 1157. From Khurāsān the Turkmāns advanced on
Ghaznī, and Khusray Shāh fled before them to Lahore, where he
died in 1160. The Punjab was all that now remained to the
descendants of Sabuktigin of the wide domains of their ancestors,
The Ghuzz Turkmāns retained possession of Ghazni for ten years
and it then fell into the hands of the princes of Ghūr.
Khusrav Shāh was succeeded by his son Khusrav, who bore
the title of Malik. He was a mild and voluptuous prince to whom
authority was irksome. The governors of the districts of his small
kingdom behaved as independent rulers, but he recked nothing, so
long as the means of indulgence was at hand. The districts fell
one by one, as will be related in the following chapter, into the
hands of Mu'izz-ud-din Muhammand bin Sām, the World-burner's
nephew, who occupied Ghazni and ruled the southern portion of
the country now known as Afghānistān as the lieutenant of his
elder brother, Ghiyās-ud-din Muhammad, who governed the now
extensive dominions of his family from his capital, Fīrūzkūh in
Ghūr. In 1181 Mu'izz-ud-dīn Muhammad appeared before Lahore
and compelled Khusrav Malik to surrender, as a token of sub-
mission, his finest elephant, and as a hostage, his son. Muhammad
then marched to Sialkot, built the fort there and placed one of his
own officers in command of it. After his departure Khusrav Malik
plucked up courage and besieged Siālkot, but could not take it and
returned to Lahore. In 1186 Muhammad again appeared before
Lahore and Khusrav sued for peace. He left the city, under a
safe conduct, to arrange the terms, but Muhammad violated his
engagement, seized him, and occupied Lahore. Khusrav Malik was
sent to Ghiyās-ud-din at Firūzkūh, where he remained a prisoner
until 1192, when Ghiyās-ud-din and his brother were preparing for
hostilities against Sultān Shāh Jalāl-ud-din Mahmud of Khvārazm
and put him and his son Bahrām to death as dangerous incumbrances.
1 According to another account Bahrām, regarding the date of whose death
there are several discrepancies, died in 1152, before the burning of Ghazni, and had
been succeeded by Khusrav Shaḥ. The T. N. is followed here,


## p. 38 (#76) ##############################################

CHAPTER III
MU'IZZ-UD-DIN MUHAMMAD BIN SĀM OF GHOR AND
THE EARLIER SLAVE KINGS OF DELHI
The history of the Ghaznavids has given us occasional glimpses
of the princes of Ghur and of the circumstances in which, during
the conflicts of their powerful neighbours, they gradually rose to
prominence. They have usually been described, on insufficient
grounds, as Afghāns, but there is little doubt that they were, like
the Sāmānids of Balkh, eastern Persians. In 1163 Saif-ud-din
Muhammad, son and successor of the World-burner, was slain in
battle against the Ghuzz Turkmāns, and was succeeded by his
cousin, Ghiyās-ud-din Muhammad, son of Bahā-ud-dīn Sām, who
in 1173 expelled the Ghuzz Turkmāns frorn Ghazni and appointed
his younger brother Shihāb-ud-din, afterwards known as Mu'izz-
ud-din Muhammad, to the government of that province.
The relations between the brothers exhibit a pleasing contrast
to the almost invariable tale of envy, jealousy, and fratricidal strife
furnished by the records of other Muslim dynasties. Ghiyās-ud-din
commanded, until his death, the loyal assistance of his brother,
and in return reposed in him a confidence which was never abused
and permitted to him a freedom of action which few other eastern
rulers have dared to tolerate in near relation. Muhammad
acquired territory and wealth which would have enabled him, had
he been so minded, to overthrow his brother and usurp his throne,
and was described on his coins 'as the great and victorious Sultan',
but the place of honour was always assigned to his brother's name,
which was distinguished by epithets denoting his superiority.
In 1175 Muhammad led his first expedition into India. Ismā.
‘ilian heretics, long freed from the restraining hand of a powerful
and orthodox ruler, had for some years borne sway in Multān.
Muhammad captured the city, appointed an orthodox governor,
and marched to the strong fortress of Uch, which he took by a
stratagem. He promised to make the raja's wife, who was on bad
terms with her husband, the principal lady in his harem if she
would deliver the fortress to him. She declined the honour for
herself but secured it for her daughter, caused her husband to be
put to death, and surrendered the city. She gained little by her
,
unnatural treachery, for she and her daughter were sent to Ghazni,
a


## p. 39 (#77) ##############################################

CH. III ]
DEFEAT OF MUHAMMAD
39
ostensibly that they might learn the doctrines and duties of Islam,
and there she died soon afterwards, justly scorned by the daughter
whom she had sold. The unfortunate girl herself died two years
later, never having been Muhammad's wife but in name.
In 1178 Muhammad sustained his first reverse on Indian soil.
He rashly led an army by way of Multān, Uch, and the waterless
Indian desert against Anhilvāra, or Pātan, the capital of Bhim the
Vāghela, the young raja of Gujarāt. His army arrived before
Anhilvāra exhausted by its desert march and utterly unfit to en-
counter the fresh and numerous army of Bhīm. His troops fought
with the valour which religious zeal inspires but were defeated, and
compelled to retrace their steps across the inhospitable desert. The
sufferings of the retreat far exceeded those of the advance and it was
but a miserable remnant of the army that reached Ghaznī.
He was nevertheless able, in the following year, to lead an army
to Peshāwar, which he wrested from the feeble grasp of the governor
placed there by Khusrav Malik, and in 1181 he led to Lahore the
expedition of which the result was the establishment of a fortress at
Siālkot.
The later successors of the great Mahmūd had been unable to
maintain their position in India by the strength of their own arm
and the hostility of the rajas of Jammū had compelled them to ally
themselves to the Khokars. The support of Khusrav Malik enabled
these tribesmen to repudiate their allegiance to Chakra Deo of
Jammu and to resist his demands for tribute and the raja avenged
himself by inviting Muhammad to invade the Punjab and promising
him his assistance. Muhammad accepted the offer with an alacrity
which did little credit to his zeal for Islam, reduced Khusrav to
submission as has already been described, and at Chakra Deo's
suggestion built the fortress of Siālkot for the purpose of curbing the
Khokars. It was at the instance and with the assistance of these
tribesmen that Khusrav Malik attacked the fortress after Muhammad's
departure, and it was owing to Chakra Deo’s aid to the garrison that
the siege was unsuccessful. In 1186, when Muhammad invaded the
Punjab for the second time, Vijaya Deo, the son and successor of
Chakra Deo, aided him against Khusrav Malik, who was treacher-
ously seized and carried to Ghaznī as already described. ‘Ali
Karmākh, who had hitherto been governor of Multān, was appointed
to Lahore, and Muhainmad, having thus established himself in
India, proceeded, by a series of operations differing entirely from
Mahmūd's raids, to the conquest of further territory in that country.


## p. 40 (#78) ##############################################

40
[CH.
THE SLAVE KINGS
In the winter of 1190-91, the south-eastern boundary of his
dominions being then probably the Sutlej, he captured Bhātinda, in
the kingdom of Prithvi Rāj', the Chauhān raja of Delhi and placed
in command of it Qāzi Ziyā-ud-dīn with his contingent of 1200 horse.
Muhammad was preparing to return when he heard that Prithvi Rāj
was advancing with a vast army to attack him. He turned to meet
him and encountered him at Tarāorī, near Karnāl. The Muslims
were overpowered by sheer weight of numbers, and both their wings
were driven from the field, but the centre still stocd fast and
Muhammad, leading a furious charge against the Hindu centre,
personally encountered the raja's brother, Govind Rāi, and shattered
his teeth with his lance, but Govind Rāi drove his javelin through
the sultan's arm, and Muhammad, fearing to sacrifice his army by
falling, turned his horse's head from the field. The army was now
in full fight, and Muhammad, faint from pain and loss of blood,
would have fallen, had not a young Khalj Turk, with great presence
of mind, sprung upon his horse behind him until he reached the
place where the fugitive army had halted. Here a litter was hastily
constructed for him and the army continued its retreat in good
order. Prithvi Rāj advanced to Bhātinda and besieged it, but the
gallant Ziyā-ud-din held out for thirteen months before he
capitulated.
Muhammad's sole care, after reaching Ghaznī, was to organise
and equip such an army as would enable him to avenge his defeat,
and in 1192 he invaded India with 12,000 horse. He was not in
time to relieve Bhātinda, but he found Prithvi Rāj encamped at
Tarāorī, and adopted tactics which bewildered the Rājput, a slave
to tradition. Of the five divisions of his army four, composed of
mounted archers, were instructed to attack, in their own style, the
flanks and, if possible, the rear of the Hindus, but to avoid hand to
hand conflicts and, if closely pressed, to feign flight. These tactics
were successfully employed from the niorning until the afternoon,
when Muhammad, judging that the Hindus were sufficiently per-
plexed and wearicd, charged their centre with 12,000 of the flower
of his cavalry. They were completely routed and Prithvi Rāj de.
scended from his elephant and mounted a horse in order to flee more
rapidly, but was overtaken near the river Saraswati and put to death.
His brother was also slain and his body was identified by the disfigu-
rement which Muhammad's lance had inflicted in the previous year.
This victory gave Muhammad northern India almost to the
1 Calle i Rāi Pithaura by Muslim writers,


## p. 41 (#79) ##############################################

III
QUTB-UD-DIN AIBAK
41
gates of Delhi. Hānsī, Sāmāna, Guhrām and other fortresses sur-
rendered after the battle of Tarāori, and the sultan marched to
Ajmer, which he plundered, carrying away numbers of its inhabi-
tants as slaves, but the city, isolated by the desert, was not yet a safe
residence for a Muslim governor, and a son of Prithvi Rāj was
appointed, on undertaking to pay tribute, as governor.
Muhammad appointed as viceroy of his new conquests Qutb-
ud-dīn Aibak, the most trusty of his Turkish officers, who made
Guhrām his headquarters. Qutb-ud-din, the real founder of Muslim
dominion in India, had been carried as a slave in his youth from
Turkistān to Nīshāpūr, where he was bought by the local governor
and, being again sold on the death of his master, passed eventually
into the hands of Muhammad. He first attracted his new master's
attention by his lavish generosity, and rose to the highest rank in his
service. His name, Aibak, which has been the subject of some
controversy, means either ‘Moon-lord,' and may indicate that he was
born during an eclipse, or ‘Moon-face,' an epithet which in the East
suggests beauty, though we learn that he was far from comely. He
was also nicknamed Shal ('defective' or 'paralysed') from an injury
which deprived him of the use of one little finger. He was active
and energetic, an accomplished horseman and archer, and sufficiently
well learned, and the lavish generosity which had distinguished his
youth earned for him in later years, when wealth had augmented his
opportunities, the name of Lak-bakhsh, or giver of tens of thousands.
Muhammad trusied Aibak as he himself was trusted by his brother,
and left him untrammelled, not only in his administration of the new
conquests, but also in his discretion to extend them.
Towards the close of the rainy season of 1192 an army of Jāts
under a leader named Jatwān, who owed allegiance to Rāja Bhīm of
Anhilvāra, invaded the Hānsī district and compelled Nusrat-uddin,
the Muslim governor, to take refuge in the fortress. Aibak marched
to his relief and in September appeared before Hānsī. The Jāts had
fled, but he followed them so closely that they were compelled to
turn and meet him and were defeated and lost their leader. Aibak
returned to Guhrāın and almost immediately set out for Meerut,
captured the fortress from the Hindu chieſtain who held it, and thus
established an outpost to the east of the Jumna.
Delhi still remained in the hands of the Chauhān Rājputs and
was a nucleus of aggressive national and religious sentiment and a
formidable obstacle to the progress of the Muslim arms. From
Meerut, therefore, Aibak marched thither, and in December, 1192,


## p. 42 (#80) ##############################################

42
[CH.
THE SLAVE KINGS
>
or January, 1193, captured the city which was destined to be the
capital of the Islamic power in India. In 1193 he made it his head-
quarters, but allowed himself no repose there.
Meanwhile an officer subordinate to Aibak had been carrying
the banner of Islam further afield. This was Ikhtiyār-ud-din
Muhammad, son of Bakhtyār, of the Turkish tribe of Khalj, which
was settled in the Garmsir between Sīstān and Ghazni. His mean
and unprepossessing appearance and his ungainly build, which enabled
him, while standing upright, to reach with his hands the calves of his
legs, had long debarred him from employment commensurate with
his ambition and his merits, and he had entered the service of
Hijabr-ud-din Hasan Adīb, an adventurous officer who had con-
quered Budaun even before Muhammad had taken Bhātinda, and
afterwards that of Malik Hisām-ud-din Āghūl Bak, another leader of
the vanguard of Islam, who had established himself in Oudh, where
Ikhtiyār-ud-din received some fiefs between the Ganges and the Son.
From this advanced base he led raids into Bihār and Tirhut and took
so much booty that large numbers of his own tribe, eager to serve
under so fortunate a leader, joined him. With this accession of
strength he invaded Bihār, took its capital, Odantapurī, put to death
the Buddhist monks dwelling in its great monastery, and returned
with his plunder, which included the library of the monastery, to
make his obeisance to Aibak, now, in the summer of 1193, established
at Delhi. The honours bestowed upon him aroused much envy and
jealousy, and intriguers and backbiters were able to freeze the stream
of Aibak's favour into the ice of suspicion and aversion ; but their
malice overreached itself, ſor to compass Ikhtiyār-ud-din's destruction
they attributed to him a foolish boast, that he could overcome an
elephant in single combat, and persuaded Aibak that the vaunt
should be made good. It had never been uttered, but Ikhtiyār-ud-din
would not decline the challenge and, against the expectation of all,
put the beast to flight. His success regained the favour of Aibak,
who dismissed him with fresh honours to Bihār, after conferring on
him as a fief his past and future conquests.
After his departure Aibak marched into the Doāb and captured
Koil, and a month or two later joined his master with 50,000 horse.
Muhammad had invaded India for the purpose of attacking Jai-
chand, Raja of Kanauj and Benares, who according to Hindu
accounts, had been his ally against Prithvi Rāj, but on discovering
that the Muslims were determined to annex northern India, had
repented of his unpatriotic alliance and was preparing to attack
1


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III ]
DELHI AND AJMER
43
the intruders. Muhammad halted near Kanauj and sent Aibak to
meet Jaichand, who was encamped at Chandwār, now Fīrūzabād,
on the Jumna, between Agra and Etāwah. The armies met on the
banks of the river, and the Muslims were on the point of giving way
when a fortunately aimed arrow struck Jaichand in the eye and he
fell dead from his elephant, whereupon the Hindus broke and fled,
and were pursued with great slaughter. Jaichand's body, crushed
beyond recognition, was found with difficulty, but his attendants
recognised it by means of the teeth, which had either been stopped
with gold or were false teeth fastened with gold wire. The victorious
army pressed on to the fortress of Āsī, near Manaich, where Jaichand
had stored his treasure, which was plundered. Thence it marched
to Benares where it destroyed several temples and took much booty,
and Muhammad then returned to Ghazni.
Muhammad's policy in Ajmer was not entirely successful. The
son of Prithvi Rāj whom he had installed there was illegitimate,
and the Rājputs, who resented his subservience to the foreigner,
made his birth a pretext for disowning him and elected in his place
Hemrāj, the brother of Prithvi Rāj. Hemrāj had molested Aibak
when he was besieging Meerut, but had been defeated and driven
off. In 1194 Rukn-ud-din Hamza, Qavām-ul-Mulk, who had cap-
tured and held Ranthambhor, reported that Hemrāj was in rebellion
and was marching to attack him. Aibak marched from Delhi to
the relief of the fortress, but Hemrāj eluded him and took refuge
in the hills of Alwar, the district then known as Mewāt. From this
retreat he attacked and captured Ajmer, compelling his nephew to
flee for refuge to Ranthambhor, and from Ajmer he dispatched a
force under a leader named Jhat Rāi against Delhi. A demonstra-
tion by Aibak was sufficient to drive Jhat Rāi back to Ajmer,
whither Aibak followed him. Hemrāj came forth to meet his enemy
but was defeated and driven back into the city, where he mounted
a funeral pyre and perished in the flaines, and a Muslim officer was
appointed to the government of the city and province.
In 1195 Aibak formed the ambitious design of avenging his
master's defeat in Gujarāt and punishing Rāja Bhim for having
molested Nusrat-ul din at Hānsi, and marched
-
to Anhilvāra.
Kunwar Pāl, the commander of Bhim's army, retired before him
but was compelled by a close pursuit to turn and stand. He was
defeated and slain, and while Bhīm took refuge in a remote corner
of his kingdom Aibak plundered his capital and the neighbouring
country and returned with much booty to Delhi by way of Hānsī.
Muhammad, on receiving Aibak’s dispatch announcing his success,


## p. 44 (#82) ##############################################

44
( CH.
THE SLAVE KINGS
summoned him to Ghazni, where he received himn with every
demonstration of approval and formally appointed him viceroy of
the Muslim dominions in India.
Aibak was
tained for some time
at Ghazni by a serious illness and shortly after his arrival at Delhi,
towards the end of 1196, was called upon to meet his master, who
had led an expedition into India, at Hansi. During this campaign
Bayāna was captured and was placed under the command of a
Turkish slave named Bahā-ud-din Tughril, and Muhammad ad-
vanced to Gwalior. He found the fortress too strong to be taken by
a coup de main and he could not spare the time for a regular siege,
but the raja was prepared to purchase immunity for himself and his
dominions, and in consideration of a promise to pay tribute and the
immediate payment of a first instalment he was permitted to retain
possession of his state and his fortress.
In the hot season of 1197, when Aibak was at Ajmer, the Mers,
who inhabited the neighbourhood of that city, rose in rebellion and
invited Rāja Bhim of Gujarāt to aid them in expelling the Muslims.
Aibak heard of these communications, and in spite of the great
heat of the season marched from Ajmer and attacked the Mers
early one morning before their ally had joined them, but their
superior numbers enabled them to maintain the conflict through-
out the day, and when the battle was renewed on the following day
Bhim's army arrived and overpowered the Muslims, driving them
back into the city. Here Aibak was besieged until the news that
a large army was marching from Ghazni to his relief caused the
Mers and Rāja Bhim's army to retreat. The reinforcements reached
Ajmer late in the year, and in December Aibak marched on Anhil-
vāra by way of Sirohi to avenge his defeat. He found Bhīm's army
awaiting him at the foot of the Abū hills in a position so strong
that he hesitated to attack it, and his caution enticed the Hindus
from the position which constituted their strength. Aibak, now on
equal terms with his enemy, attacked shortly after dawn and was
obstinately resisted until midday, when the Hindus broke and fled.
They suffered severely : 15,000 were slain and 20,000 captured and
twenty elephants and much other plunder were taken. Aibak ad-
vanced, unopposed, to Anhilvāra, plundered the city and returned
with much wealth, of which he transmitted a due proportion to
Muhammad and to Ghīyās ud-din.
During the next five years the two brothers were much occupied
with the affairs of Khurāsān, and Muhammad had so little leisure
to spare for India that the northern provinces enjoyed a period of
comparative repose, welcome to the troops after nine years' warfare,


## p. 45 (#83) ##############################################

in )
EARLY MUSLIM RULE
45
and beneficial to the country. We may imagine that the conquerors
employed this interval of peace for the establishment of their simple
system of government, but of this no details are given, for Muslim
historians are concerned almost exclusively with war and court
intrigue. There is no reason to believe that the system established
by the earlier conquerors differed from that which we find in
existence at a later date under Muslim rulers. Military fiel-holders
were responsible for the preservation of order, for the ordinary
executive duties of government, and for the collection of the
revenue when it was necessary to use any degree of force, but in
matters of detail full use was made of indigenous institutions.
Hindu accountants kept the registers in which was recorded the
landholder's or cultivator's normal liability to government, Hindu
village officials ordinarily collected such revenue as could be col-
lected without the employment of force, and Hindu caste tribunals
decided most of the disputes to which Hindus only were parties.
Disputes between Muslims were decided by Muhammadan qazis
and muftis, and differences between Hindus and their conquerors
either by these officials or by the strong hand of the fief-holder or
his deputy, whose natural predilection for their co-religionists would
be restrained sometimes by a sense of justice but more often by
their interest in repressing misconduct likely to lead to disorders.
It must not be supposed that this description applies uniformly
to the whole of the territory over which the Muslims pretended to
dominion. Extensive tracts often remained under the rule of Hindu
rajas or landowners who were permitted to retain their authority
on promising to pay tribute or taxes, which they paid when the
central authorities was strong and withheld when it was weak.
Both the extent and the boundaries of fieſs held by Muslim officers
were uncertain and a strong or ruthless fief-holder would extinguish
all vestiges of Hindu authority in his fief, and even beyond its
borders, while another, weak or accommodating, might deal with
lesser Hindu proprietors as the central government dealt with the
rajas and great landholders. The history of northern India exhibits,
until the middle of the sixteenth century, many instances of the
extent to which Hindus regained their power under a weak govern-
ment, as well as of their sufferings under despots strong enough to
indulge their bigotry without restraint.
The five years' interval of peace was limited to the provinces
in north-western India under Aibak's immediate control, for
Ikhtiyār-ud din's activity was not abated. After returning, in 1193,
from Delhi to Bihār he hatched schemes of conquest which should


## p. 46 (#84) ##############################################

46
[ck.
THE SLAVE KINGS
the sea
extend the dominion of the faithful to
on one side and
beyond the great mountain barrier of the Himālaya on the other.
Lower Bengal was now ruled by Lakshman, of the Sen dynasty,
who, having been a posthumous son, had succeeded at his birth to
his father's kingdom and was now an aged man dwelling peacefully
at Nabadwīpa or Nadiya, which his grandfather had made the
capital of Bengal. In 12021 Ikhtiyār-ud-din left Bihār with a large
body of horse, and marched so rapidly on Nadiya that he arrived
at the city with no more than eighteen companions. Nadiya was
partly deserted at this time, many of its wealthier inhabitants
having retired and settled further to the east, owing, it is said, to
predictions in ancient books that the city would be captured by
the Turks? , but their flight may be more reasonably attributed to
authentic stories of the activity and rapacity of the Muslims than
to ancient prophecy. Lakshman Sen, whether from apathy or from
confidence, had refused to leave his capital, and when the intruders,
who had been permitted to pass through the city under the im.
pression that they were horsedealers from the north, reached his
palace gates he was sitting down to a meal. The Muslims cut down
the guards and bystanders, burst into the palace, and at once all
was uproar and confusion. The raja, in the half-naked state in
which a Hindu of high caste is obliged to eat, left his unfinished
meal and escaped by boat, and the adventurers were able to hold
their own until the rest of the army arrived, when they plundered
the treasury of the accumulations of a peaceful reign of eighty
years and sacked and destroyed the city3. Ikhtiyār-ud-dīn retired
to Gaur or Lakhnāwati, where he established himself firmly as
governor of Bengal, founded mosques, colleges, and caravanserais,
and caused the Khutball to be recited in the name of Mu'izz-ud-din
Muhammad, who had succeeded as sole ruler on the death of his
elder brother, Ghiyās-ud-din, on February 11, 1203.
Lakshman Sen escaped to Vikrampur, near Sonārgāon and eight
miles south-east of Dacca, and from this town, which had been the
1 This date is not quite certain. Some authors place the expedition a year
later and one some years earlier.
* 2 The predictions, as recorded by Muslim historians, were strangely minute in
matters of detail, but these historians wrote after the event, and the original texts
which they cite cannot be traced.
3 Some suspicion rests on the details of this account, which is drawn from
Muslim sources.
4 This is a homily and bidding prayer recited in mosques on Fridays and
festivals and contains the name of the ruling sovereign, whose title it formally
acknowledges. Among Muslims it is one of the two symbols of sovereignty, the
other being the minting of money.


## p. 47 (#85) ##############################################

II ]
BENGAL
47
favourite residence of his great-grandfather Balāl Sen, ruled the
narrow remnant of his kingdom, in which he was succeeded by his
son Madhav Sen, who, again, was succeeded by his own son Sū Sen,
the last of the line.
The peace in northern India was broken by Aibak, who in 1202
attacked Parmāl, the Chandel raja of Kālinjar, whose ancestor had
paid tribute to Mahmud. Parmāl was defeated, and in order to
retain possession of his fortress accepted the position of a vassal, but
while he was collecting the stipulated tribute suddenly died, and his
minister Aja Deo, who aspired to his throne, refused to abide by the
treaty and, trusting to a spring which had never been known to fail,
resolved to stand the chances of a siege, but a few days after he had
closed the gates the hitherto inexhaustible spring dried up, and the
citizens, confronted with the prospect of death from thirst incautiously
admitted the besiegers without making fresh terms. Aibak punished
Aja Deo's treachery by treating the city as one taken by storm.
Plunder amounting to far more than the promised tribute was taken,
50,000 captives, male and female, were carried off as slaves, and the
temples in the city were converted into mosques. After capturing
Kālinjar, Aibak reduced without difficulty Mahoba, the civil capital
of the Chandel state, and on his way towards Budaun received
Ikhtiyār-ud-din, who presented to him the spoils of Nadiya.
Muliammad bin Sām sustained at the hands of the Turkmāns
of 'Alā-ud-din Muhammad Khvārazm Shāh, near Andkhūī, in 1205,
a defeat which dealt a fatal blow at his military reputation in India.
It was reported, and for some time believed, that he had been
killed, and his old enemies the Khokars and some other tribes to
the north of the Salt Range rose under the leadership of Rāi Sāl,
a petty raja who, having been converted to Islam, had since relapsed.
The rebels defeated the deputy governor of Multān and plundered
Lahore, and by closing the roads between that city and Ghaznī
prevented the remittance of revenue from the Punjab. Muhammad,
intent on avenging his defeat at the hands of Khvārazm Shāh,
ordered Aibak to deal with the rebellion in India, but this step
confirmed the rebels in their belief that the reports of his death
were true, for they did not understand the difficulties which con-
fronted him in Central Asia and could not believe that he would
entrust to a subordinate a task so important as the suppression of
their rebellion. Muhammad at length perceived the necessity for
taking the field in person, and on October 20, 1205, set out from
Ghaznī for India. He left Peshāwar on November 9 and fell


## p.